


WereLife

by RiverWitch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-03-31
Updated: 2013-03-31
Packaged: 2017-12-07 02:02:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,382
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/742869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RiverWitch/pseuds/RiverWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In her third year at Hogwarts, on the night that Pettigrew is revealed and escapes, Hermione is bitten by her Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher, Remus Lupin. Her life changes after that night. She will have challenges to face, mistakes to make, demons to put to reat and romance to find on her road to archiving the best WereLife she can have.</p><p>DISCLAIMER:</p><p>All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, in this case J. K. Rowling and her 'Harry Potter' series. The original characters and plot are mine and mine alone. Some concepts that have been adapted to my story are from the 'True Blood' TV series which is a creation of Alan Ball and HBO, based off Charlaine Harris' 'Sookie Stackhouse' novels. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of 'Harry Potter', 'True Blood' or 'Sookie Stackhouse' and I make no money as result of writing and posting this story. No copyright infringement is intended!</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Prologue

**PROLOGUE**

**_December 19th_ **

_Dear Diary,_

_Last night was a nightmare… Merlin, how I wish it was all nothing but a nightmare - a figment of an overdriven imagination and too many horror films over the summer! It wasn't though… Last night or maybe this morning - everything in my mind is still so scrambled I can hardly remember anything except for…_

_Last night I did the thing I was most afraid of. The one thing I dreaded since the madness started half a year ago and struggled the hardest against: I lost control._

_I almost killed someone, someone I care about, a friend of mine, and now I have to live with it. But how can I? …how can he?_

_I used to think the worst feeling in the world was losing someone you care about, but I was wrong. The worst feeling comes the moment that you realise you've lost yourself and that there's no road and no direction for you to find your way back._


	2. AND IT STARTS

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> STORY TIME LINE:
> 
> "Harry Potter and the Prisoner Of Azkaban", chapter twenty "The Dementor's Kiss", is where 'WereLife' begins and I start playing around with the canon time line… From there on most of the canon story line will stay the same for Harry, Ron and most of the characters, but for Hermione and some others things will never be the same as JK Rowling envisioned them.
> 
> DISCLAIMER:
> 
> All publicly recognizable characters, settings, etc. are the property of their respective owners, in this case J. K. Rowling and her 'Harry Potter' series. The original characters and plot are mine and mine alone. Some concepts that have been adapted to my story are from the 'True Blood' TV series which is a creation of Alan Ball and HBO, based off Charlaine Harris' 'Sookie Stackhouse' novels. I am in no way associated with the owners, creators, or producers of 'Harry Potter', 'True Blood' or 'Sookie Stackhouse' and I make no money as result of writing and posting this story. No copyright infringement is intended!

**AND IT STARTS**

  


* * *

_****_

_**~Severus Snape~**_

His head, ready to burst open from the monster like mother of all pains, was the first thing Severus Snape, Potions Master and Professor at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, registered as he woke up. His whole body hurt, every single, most insignificant cell, and still it was nothing - NOTHING - compared to the blinding, murderous, ever-growing headache raging throughout his skull. And if the headache itself wasn't enough - though in Severus's agony induced opinion it was more than _fucking_ enough, thank you very much - flashes of memory, some that made absolutely no sense and others that only supplied more force to his headache, were raging havoc on his mind.

_Those fucking bastards…_

They, all of them, Lupin, Black, Granger and Weasley had really did a number on him. He remembered it all: walking into Lupin's office with that night's Wolfsbane, seeing Lupin's and the mutt's name on the map, noticing Potter's name too and then madness… Madness and a thirst for killing he hadn't had in so many years he'd thought it an issue of the past… And then there he was, at the Shack - he could barely remember throwing the cup of Wolfsbane and seeing it shatter on the wall, never mind what happened next - but there he was, under Potter's cloak, of all places, listening to a bunch of idiots raging on about - him. Of all the things a murdering traitor illegal animagus, a fucking werewolf and his own personal pain in the arse, Potter, could have talked about and they decided to talk about… HIM?

_"All this year," Lupin was saying as Severus, well hidden beneath his cloak and more silent than ever - he barely allowed himself to breathe - came upon the four. "I have been battling with myself, wondering whether I should tell Dumbledore that Sirius was an Animagus. But I didn't do it. Why? Because I was too cowardly. It would have meant admitting that I'd betrayed his trust while I was at school, admitting that I'd led others along with me… and Dumbledore's trust has meant everything to me. He let me into Hogwarts as a boy, and he gave me a job when I have been shunned all my adult life, unable to find paid work because of what I am. And so I convinced myself that Sirius was getting into the school using dark arts he learned from Voldemort, that being an Animagus had nothing to do with it… so, in a way, Snape's been right about me all along."_

_"Snape?" Severus watched Black say, his face turning from angry and somewhat pensive to sour as if his name alone tasted like bitter on his lips. "What's Snape got to do with it?"_

_"He's here, Sirius," the werewolf explained. "He's teaching here as well. Professor Snape," he went on in what Severus could only assume was his teacher's voice. "was at school with us. He fought very hard against my appointment to the Defense Against the Dark Arts job. He has been telling Dumbledore all year that I am not to be trusted. He has his reasons…you see, Sirius here played a trick on him which nearly killed him, a trick which involved me -"_

_Black made a derisive noise and Severus himself, had to struggle with everything in him not to make the same sound or just up and kill the bastard; be it with his bare hands or his wand, it mattered little._

_"It served him right," Black sneered. "Sneaking around, trying to find out what we were up to… hoping he could get us expelled…"_

_"Severus was very interested in where I went every month." Lupin interrupted. "We were in the same year, you know, and we - err - didn't like each other very much. He especially disliked James. Jealous, I think, of James's talent on the Quidditch field… anyway Snape had seen me crossing the grounds with Madam Pomfrey one evening as she led me toward the Whomping Willow to transform. Sirius thought it would be - err - amusing, to tell Snape that all he had to do was prod the knot on the tree trunk with a long stick, and he'd be able to get in after me… Discover my dark, dark secret… Well, of course, Snape tried it - if he'd got as far as this house, he'd have met a fully grown werewolf - but your father, who'd heard what Sirius had done, went after Snape and pulled him back, at great risk to his life… Snape glimpsed me, though, at the end of the tunnel. He was forbidden by Dumbledore to tell anybody, but from that time on he knew what I was…"_

_"So that's why Snape doesn't like you, because he thought you were in on the joke?"_

The last who spoke before he revealed himself had been Potter and in the end the one responsible for it all - be it this Potter or the one from his own school days, it didn't matter… Potter was to blame… Potter and Black and Lupin… And now Potter and Weasley and Granger… and that fucking three ways stunner and…

A grin spread over his face. Yes Weasley and Granger and, Potter, the Idiot Who'd Finally Did It, who had finally managed to get himself out of Severus's hair and the school once and for all.

_Dumbledore can't save you now, Potter!_

Oh, he will try, Severus was certain of that. The old fool will fight tooth and nail to keep his favourite Gryffindor at his side, but attacking a professor was simply too much, even for a Potter.

_Not even Dumbledore can sweep something like this under the rug._

Albus Dumbledore or no Albus Dumbledore, Potter wasn't going to get out of this one.

Still grinning madly Severus opened his eyes, looked around him and almost laughed. Weasley was out cold, spread out just to the left of where he stood with Granger's horrible cat next to him. He could only imagine Granger and Potter being nearby as well.

_Perfect!_ _Bloody fantastic!_

It might just be the one chance he had been waiting for since Potter's first year - hell, since Potter Senior's first year - to bring the fucking brats back to school, to play the hero who saved them all and get the lot expelled. It was perfect, it was -

"Arghhhh…!"

… it was Potter. He would know that voice anytime, anywhere, anyhow. He was in trouble, as always, and by the direction and potency of the scream he was near, probably by the lake.

For a second Severus actually considered ignoring the moron's cry completely.

_Let the little shite deal with his messes on his own, for a change._

Oh, how he wished that he could do just that. Look the other way and pretend nothing had ever happened; that he'd never heard the fuck scream. But he couldn't. Dumbledore had long ago made sure of it. So with a heavy sigh, Severus stood. He straightened his clothes, silently accioing his wand and without a second glance at his surrounding he was once again off after the idiot.

_****_

_**~Hermione Granger~**_

"Expe-" Hermione whispered, "expe - expe-"

She tried, she really did, with all the determination she could put into that one spell, but it was useless. The Dementors were too close and she couldn't find one happy thought to concentrate on. There was nothing inside of her anymore, but soul-chilling sadness and despair and… She was doing to die. She was going to have her soul ripped out by those monsters and there wasn't a thing she or anybody could do to stop it. Harry was going to die and Sirius Black, and then the foul creatures would go back for Ron and Professor Snape… And then for Professor Lupin and all of her friends and teachers back at the castle… And then for her parents…

She could hear Harry's shouted incantations and for an instant - the briefest instant ever - she felt something good, human and warm; something that looked, tasted and felt just like hope. She wanted to reach inside of herself for that feeling; reach in, grab it, hold it and guard it from the monsters that sucked everything out of her with their presence alone, but she couldn't. It was gone. Nothing but a flash of lighting in the glumness of darkness, that beautiful feeling burning bright for the shortest of seconds and then… The sadness came back - and it brought back the friends she wanted nothing to do with. She hated it, hated it all: the fear, the hopelessness, the weakness, the despair.

"Expecto - expecto - expecto -" She tried again, fighting with her own mind for a happy emotion, raising her wand again, that suddenly felt like it weighted a tone in her tired hand, and shouting the incantation again and again.

She couldn't do it. She couldn't get it to work. She had no happy memories left any more as if she'd never had - as if her whole life had been nothing but unhappiness and despair. But that wasn't right - there had to be something good - there used to be something good.

_An eleven year old brushy haired Hermione, beamed at her parents with adoration and gratitude as her small arms squeezed her newly acquired 'A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration'. She was going to Hogwarts - to learn magic, like Transfiguration and Potions and Charms…_

"Expecto -"

Something better -

_She had swished and flicked the 10¾ inch, Vine and dragon heartstring wand, making a diminutive professor squeak in delight as hers was the first feather that flew towards the ceiling of the classroom. Ronald Weasley mumbled something that sounded pretty much like 'Show-off' but she didn't care. She was happy and proud of herself._

_The professor was proud of her too…_

"Expecto -"

Something extraordinary -

_Now a bit older, Hermione was concentrating on brewing and brewing alone, all the while fighting with herself to not let go of the tears that threatened to fall and the disappointment of being yet again ignored. It was the same every class. She should have been used to it by now and still each day, each Potions class, she hoped and dreamed she could be even once acknowledged by her professor. That he could at least once give her a sign that he was proud of her._

_But he wasn't. She understood that now - he hated her. It was okay; a lone tear found its way around her stubbornness and Hermione violently wiped it away with the back of her hand. It was just like it always was: she would try to get his approval and he would make her feel small and insignificant - a nuisance. **That was fine! I'm okay with it… I just have to get used to the fact that he hates me** \- and just as she'd resigned herself she felt it _ -

"Expecto-"

Something that made her the happiest she'd ever been -

_A hand brushed the side of Hermione's shoulder. It had barely touched her; barely there, more like a ghost of a touch than an actual one, and yet she felt all the way though her body to the very deep end of her soul. She knew it was him even without risking a glance up from her cauldron._

**_He doesn't hate me_** -

_She smiled_ \- _a smile so small nobody could see; her tears now dry_ \- _and stirring her concoction, added the four Valerian Sprigs. She was almost done. All she needed now was to stir clockwise seven more times and wave her wand in the intricate pattern the professor showed at the beginning of class and her potion would be completed._

_She smiled again_ \- _He is proud!_

"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"

A silver mist-like beam gushed out of the tip of her wand surrounding Harry and herself in a cocoon of bright, white light. It wasn't like Harry's, an almost corporeal Patronus but it was, at least to her happiness deprived brain, was the most beautiful thing she had ever seen. It was warm and cool at the same time; fuelling her heart, soul and mind with all the happiness she had been without since encountering the Dementors and then some. It was perfect, bright, comforting and then…

_****_

_**~Severus Snape~**_

It took Severus not more than five minutes to ran faster than he could ever remembered running, catch up to and find the imbeciles, because of course Potter was not alone-

_The chit just had to be at Potter's side!_ _Well, better her than Weasley!_

The two were on the far-off lakeshore of the Black Lake, crouched down over an unmoving figure - Black's no doubt - whilst hundreds of Dementors rushed towards the group; surrounding them from every side with no escape… no chance… no help…

Severus wasted no time in bolting down the slope towards them, running and jumping over landscape he didn't even need to see to know was there; rushing once more - for what felt like the hundredth time that year alone - to save the Potter fuck. And he was almost by his side - their side - too, when suddenly a brown-grey blur, one he only caught a flash of in the corner of his eye, came out of nowhere slamming full force into him.

He was down before his brain even registered the hit. The air was knocked out of his lungs, his back skinned raw on the roughness of wool and hard ground, his hands and legs radiating pain from the awkward position they landed in and his head throbbing even worse than it did before - and all because…

_Fucking Potter simply can't leave well enough alone…_

The thought of Potter came like a relief against the pain and he rejoiced it for a full minute with fantastic images of a school without the brat - or any fucking Potter for that matter - flying all around his mind, before the realisation that he still couldn't breathe came crashing down on him and with it and the moment Severus opened his eyes, the reality of his situation. There, perched on his chest, growling and snarling just inches from his face, was the brown-grey blur, now a full figure werewolf posed, ready and more than fucking willing - if the lust in the beast's yellow eyes and the slobber running between razor-sharp, needle-tip pointy teeth and down its jaw were anything to go by.

Severus had no time to think, no time to consider that beyond the beast's furry body, hungry look and sharp fangs was still a man; one he knew, a colleague of his and a former school mate; before his wand - Merlin knows how he actually reached for it with what had seemed only a second ago to be a broken arm - was shoved in the wolf's neck and a curse had already left his lips: "Confringo!" The blast that followed was deafening. The werewolf howled in pain as it was thrown of his victim, but left unharmed, when any other creature would have been blown to pieces.

Severus got up - again with legs the shouldn't have worked from the pain he experienced just seconds earlier and yet did - aimed his wand at the beast once more, intent on using the strongest thing he could think of and probably the only thing that could end it, when he saw what his own stupidity had done. The werewolf, enraged by the blast and his missed dinner, that was Severus himself, had pounded on the first human being his eyes felt upon and that had been none other than Miss Granger…

_The fucking chit…_

He watched, with crazed eyes and a paralysed body, as the beast dragged the girl form beside Potter and towards the forest beyond, his fangs sunken deep into her shoulder. Then; snapping out of his momentary stupor at the sight of the child's blood running down her small body and onto the grey ground; aimed his wand again and fired the first curse that came to mind "Sectumsempra!" all the way praying to Merlin, God and another deity willing to listen that the girl wouldn't be hit too. Because right now with the ashen look her face had and the blood that still run freely down her shoulder and arm on onto the ground, leaving behind her a trail of red, he wasn't sure she could survive both the werewolf - if she did indeed survive the beast - and his cutting curse.

There was howling, the sound of running - heavy paws hitting the dry dirt as the beast rushed into the woods - and screaming and then, there was nothing… but light so bright that it reached him even behind closed eyelids, the sudden shift from despairing cold to a warm summer night and harsh, ragged breathing that sounded distant and yet too close to be anyone's but his.

Severus sighed, opened his eyes and stared at the image before him. The girl, the know-it-all brainiac Gryffindor, was laying face down on the ground in a pool of bright, shining, red blood. Potter was by the shore, collapsed over the unmoving figure of Black and the Dementors, the foul creatures that have surrounded them ever since he had reached to lake, were retreating towards the gates and away from the lake, chased by an unknown and yet incredible familiar stag Patronus.

For a second it was 1975 again, his fifth year Defence Against the Dark Arts practical OWL and James Fucking Potter was showing off his perfect corporeal stag Patronus that by some twisted design of a sick and sadistic fate complemented Lily's doe perfectly - the pride of joy of Gryffindor, the Golden Girl and Boy and their fucking matching Patronuses. Severus too had been there, the ridicule of all of Hogwarts and even some of the examiners, when his attempt at bonus points had produced not a majestically beautiful silver mist animal or at least a dangerous one, but a doe - the same fucking girl doe as Lily's.

The former ridiculed student, turned professor and protector of Potter's brat and friends, shook his head, forcing his mind back to the stag of today, away from the one so long ago that had hunted him for so many years and back to the scene in front of him. The Dementors were gone, the stag nowhere to be seen, Potter and Black were probably not soulless or were they - not that he really cared either way - and Granger…

Granger was dying and Severus had no fucking idea what to do about it…

So he ran. He ran to her side, crouching by the slowly exsanguinated girl and lifting her into his lap looked, really looked for what was probably the first time, at the girl.

The first thing he noticed, even before looking actually, but by feel alone, was just how light she was; nothing but a speck of dust on his lap compared to the werewolf he had the misfortune to support on his chest only minutes before. She was thin too - his eyes supplied when they ran up and down the small ball of bones, skin and blood in his arms - thin enough to count ribs, bones and joints and miss not even the smallest of them. She had dark circles under her eyes too, the kind he also got, but normally after at least a week of nightly nightmares and too much patrolling the castle and her cheekbones were not only noticeable but her main feature. Her eyes, which had always annoyed him with that sparkle of brilliance, were thankfully closed and her lips, which he knew had to have at one time been rosy in colour, just as all of her classmates', were purple and ill. Her hair, her most recognisable feature, was dirty and wet, soaked in ruby-red blood, covered in mud and sticking to her now ashen skin all over her face and neck. And then, there was her neck - or more exactly the place where shoulder meet neck, where a large chunk of flesh and skin was missing and from where rivers of dark, almost black, blood flowed freely down her arm and torso on the ground or his cloak, soaking them both in her essence and life. Yes, she was dying with every new drop of red life leaving her; every drop closer to death, and farther from life.

But he could still save her…

Severus laid the girl gently in the freshly made cot never once caring for the rustling around him. It was all white noise to him; buzzing of life that mattered to him little as he watched the girl clinging to his arms in her unconsciousness yet sighing in what to him sounded of relief when the magical healing charm on the bed surrounded her small, fragile body.

He straighten immediately, leaving the girl to her feeble reprieve from her agony, and for the first time since leaving the lake looked and saw the world that kept spinning around him. Dumbledore and McGonagall were levitating Potter and Black towards their cots. Poppy was frantically rushing to and from her potions cabinet, taking out bottles, walking towards one of the beds, and then changing her mind mid stride, turning around and retrieving some other bottle potion. There were sounds too. Voices that sounded distant and foreign; voices that bellowed, whispered or cried. On a cot on the other side of the infirmary he could see Weasley's frantic, angry face, his voice one of the ones speaking around him.

Severus didn't make out the words. He couldn't - wouldn't make any of them out. Not when the one person his whole life had revolved around for the last, Merlin knows how many minutes continued to die and there was nothing anybody was doing about it. And then, just as his mind had decided to scream at them all, to let the fuckers deal with their own idiotic mistakes and come help the girl, there was a cry - Minerva's - a rustling of robes, hurried footsteps and wands drawn and finally - FINNALY - Granger was getting the attention she needed.

Severus sighed relieved when Poppy pushed him aside and started working her magic on the girl. She was safe and in good hands and now he could at last release the spell casting and drift back to his dungeons.

As the spell was cancelled and his essence was once again his own, Severus realised just how far gone he'd been during the last minutes. The voices he'd heard since entering the infirmary were now louder, sharper and clearer; the images were focused once more in something other than the girl dying or healing on the bed next to him and his mind, the one thing he'd always prided in to never let him down, finally came back from centring on her and her life or death to the more important things like Potter's expulsion for attacking a teacher, Black's delivery to Azkaban or the fact that the girl fighting for life just a few feet behind him had been better off dead than becoming a werewolf as it would undoubtedly happen.

_****_

_**~Hermione Granger~**_

Death was supposed to be peaceful. That was what all the books, Hermione read on the subject, had said. It was supposed to be a relief from the agony of life; a long awaited release of the soul. But what Hermione felt was nothing of the sort.

It was agony, the worst type agony and then some. Her every fibre ached and screamed, under lava-hot flames. She couldn't understand, couldn't make sense of anything while burning pain shook a body she knew had to be dead; wanted it to be dead. Because a dead body had to be the only thing in God's creation that could withstand pain such as the one she was experiencing right now.

Hermione heard the voices speak, but understood nothing and cared for even less. The pain, the burning pain raging through her body had lessened slightly, but still it was all she could think about. All she was right now was pain and nothing more. Nothing matter to her anymore; not the voices she knew she would have recognised if not for the pain and certainly not the words that to her were at that moment nothing more than letters put together to form nothing.

"What amazes me most is the behaviour of the Dementors… you've really no idea what made them retreat, Snape?"

"No, Minister- by the time I had managed to chase the beast off Granger they were heading back to their positions at the entrances-"

"Extraordinary. And yet Black, and Harry, and the girl-"

"Unconscious… all of them. I tended to Miss Granger's wounds to the best of my abilities, bound and gagged Black, naturally, conjured stretchers and brought them all straight back to the castle."

"And you're absolutely sure the Granger girl wasn't bitten?"

There was a pause in the dialogue that to Hermione sounded like gibberish. She was sure she would have made more sense of Gobbledegook, a language she knew not even a word of, than she did this, yet she did hear and understood her name. Unfortunately or maybe fortunately that was the extent of it.

"Positive, Minister. She was clawed and roughened up by the beast; a horrible image indeed. But bitten she was most fortunately not."


End file.
